It’s been a helluva week on a personal level, but I’m completely stoked for the Women’s World Cup which starts Saturday. All of the games are being shown on Fox, Fox Sports 1 or Fox Sports 2, and theoretically you can stream them through FoxSportsGo (I can’t get it to work) if you’ve got cable or pay $19.99 for a month of subscription to the online service FoxSoccer2Go — I’m waiting to buy mine until the last minute to make sure I get the final match in my month, because hopefully it works like that.

Anyway, before every world cup I like to do a FIFA spreadsheet that uses the FIFA rankings to predict the winners of every match. This year I threw in the 538 rankings as well, and they actually did predict slightly different games.

It’s worth noting that games never go the way my spreadsheets predict, they’re just a fun exercise in what “should” happen. You can also download it and update it as games are played to predict based on actual results. I will be doing that at least once, before the round of 16 begins.

For a reminder, I did a ranking of who my favorite teams were by spreadsheet. This is difficult because Uruguay has lost probably my favorite player, in terms of maximum entertainment value, do to his antics, but continues to have Diego Forlán, so I think I’m going to leave them at #2 and not readjust everything. Also I’m lazy.

It is no secret that I am a huge fan of the US Women’s National Soccer Team. This past weekend there was a friendly between the US and Canada and one of the American players was the subject to racial slurs while she was on the field.

Sydney Leroux was born in Canada to a Canadian mother and an American father and wanted, from a very young age, to play for the US team. This is undoubtedly because the US team would have been by far the greatest team in the world during her formative years and has developed quite the legacy. (I would argue that Brazil has the greatest women’s player of all time).

So, last year when she played in Vancouver she got greeted not only with taunts about her being a Judas for going to play for the US but also with racial slurs. She gets these slurs on a regular basis online as well.

Anyway, she scored an easy goal this weekend in overtime and pointed to her US Crest on her jersey and got a yellow card for it. One of the tamest actions I’ve ever seen to earn a yellow card, and really, in response to the boos she’d gotten all game long and for her entire career, it’s so tame that I am surprised it earned notice at all. But there you are.

After the game she went to twitter to say: “When you chant racial slurs, taunt me and talk about my family don’t be mad when I shush you and show pride in what I represent. #america”

So everyone’s in a bit of an uproar about it all. I always thought Canadians would be better about this sort of thing than the US is, and I am even more surprised to see it so prevalent in the women’s game. But there we are. I suppose the most important thing to get out of this is that Sydney’s twitter feed is terribly amusing.

6:35 Camada still pushing pretty hard. I imagine it’d be a major morale boost if they could get something out of these last few minutes, but the US is shutting them down.

6:34 A minute into 3 minutes of overtime.

6:33 Great cross from Canada leading to the only shot from Canada, but way, way off.

6:32 US basically playing keep-away with a few seconds and injury time left.

6:30 Corner comes to nothing. But they come back at goal and earn themselves another corner. USA has gotten so many corners this game.

But this one, like the others, doesn’t yield much.

6:28 US a bit sloppy with passes, Canada trying to be aggressive.

Corner earned for the US.

6:25 83 minutes and Canada has yet to get a shot off, much less one on goal. They look much better than that stat would imply.

6:24 Press on for Morgan. I guess they feel comfortable only 2 goals up with 10 minutes left in the game?

6:22 Abby gets in a tussle with Buchanan. And she’s all smiles. Just grinning broadly. It’s lovely.

6:21 Alex Morgan is in the top 10 scorers all time for USWNT and she’s quite young. Fantastic.

All I could really ask for is a goal for Abby for her birthday.

6:20 Straight into the wall. TAKE THAT, CANADA

6:18 Foul called against Mewis. And it’s totally bullshit. On the edge of the penalty box. Well dove, I suppose

6:16 Leroux on for Heath. Leroux was born in Canada but plays for the US. So, she’s not popular with this crowd.

6:14 And on the rebound from the corner MORGAN BAMBAM

US 2 – CAN 0

6:13 Canada comes right back at the US and looking pretty dangerous. Another sub from them and a well-earned corner for them.

6:12 MORGAN!!!

US 1 – CAN 0

6:11 Great chance for Canada, but the ball has no pace when it’s finally shot.

6:10 Another substitute for Canada.

6:09 Canada gets a little something together up front, but nothing much comes from it.

6:07 Nothing from the corner. My TV is being annoying. There’s a storm.

Foul means a good threatening position for a free kick, but hot damn that Canadian goalkeeper is there like BAM.

6:05 Beautiful run forward by Morgan, passes it in to Cheney, but Cheney can’t do much with it. But! Another corner.

Mewis is on now, which means we’re losing the awesome Crystal Dunn.

6:04 30 minutes left. Canada subs a new forward.

6:02 O’Reilly offside.

6:01 Morgan gets up, but wastes her cross.

Pretty impressive that US has ensured that Canada has yet to find a way to get a shot off.

6:00 The pressure from the US has definitely gone up a notch.

Cheney tries from distance, but no pace, not on target.

5:58 No real threat during that corner, but it earns them a second.

Short corner, whistles goes off, retake it.

Fantastic header, great pace, but the goalkeeper is there.

5:56 Great passing, blocked, gets the US a corner

5:55 Alex Morgan gets past all the defenders, looks like a great opportunity, but the goalkeeper comes out and is stopped. Tripped up. Should have shot it. Too many touches. Come on ladies, get it together.

5:53 Morgan gets off a shot on goal with absolutely no pace on it. Easily stopped.

5:52 Can’t help but wonder how this game would look different with Pia. Not sure they’d be playing better, Pia definitely had some weaknesses as a coach. But whatever mojo the US had under her seems to be understated throughout this game.

I love seeing Barnie come off her line like that, not usually her thing.

HAO I missed you last year, I’m glad you’re back 🙂

0-0 at the half

5:32 US not really playing as well as one might hope, but it’s a very hostile crowd. They don’t look panicky, but they also don’t look as organized as Canada.

5:30 Nothing from the corner but Canada attacks again. Not much action resulting and the US is back in solid possession.

5:28 Barnhart comes well out of the goal to stop a promising attack from Sinclair. Very nicely done, but gives away a corner.

5:26 Good pressure near goal from the US, but they aren’t really coming close to scoring.

Canada steals it in the US half, but US gets it back quickly. Again over-passes it forward and loses it. Calm down ladies, strategy is just as important as aggression.

5:25 Nice series of passes from the US under intense pressure from Canada.

US gets forward, but good defense from Canada.

5:22 This is really what I like to call an Unfriendly.

Injury, Dunn kicks a ball into a Canadian’s temple.

5:21 Second corner in a row for US. They spend a bit more time setting up for it. Great deal of shoving. Nothing comes of it, again.

5:19 Ooh almost a beautiful situation. Dunn gets a great cross but the header from O’Reilly is blocked. They earn a corner. Nothing from that. But they earn another corner.

5:17 This game has been very physical. Canada has quite a few fouls already. Their 5 midfielders are really keeping the attacks rare and not very solid. They don’t seem to have a real offensive energy going yet.

5:16 And nothing comes from the corner. The Canadian goalkeeper is doing quite well.

The USA-Canada match will be broadcast live on ESPNews at 4:30 p.m. ET. It will be the USA’s first match in Toronto since May 25, 2009, a 4-0 U.S. victory at BMO Field. Fans can also follow along on ussoccer.com’s MatchTracker and on Twitter at @ussoccer_WNT.

Abby Wambach is on 155 goals and is just three away from tying Mia Hamm on the world’s all-time scoring list. Canada’s Christine Sinclair comes into the game with 145 career goals, meaning the duo has scored exactly 300 goals between them.

The USA is ranked #1 in the world. Canada is tied for #7 with England.

The USA is 6-0-2 in 2013. Canada is 4-3-2 in the 2013.

– See more at: http://www.ussoccer.com/social/wnt-blog.aspx#plckblogpage=BlogPost&plckpostid=Blog%3Ad64c9a0e-f4da-40cf-ab0a-d80aab1b0a00Post%3Af4b2cbe5-7ec5-4fe3-9f2b-ebc54cdee46d

4:40 So, I just finished vaguely following the US v Germany men’s game, which we won, but it served only to prepare me for the US vs Canada WOMEN’S game. Which is starting right now. Just as soon as they get this whole anthem situation.

Apparently the game sold out in less than an hour because Canada is pretty awesome. And they’re pissed at being beaten by the US during the Olympics. Isn’t it awesome that they care?!

I got up early to get ready to see the papers, and to make sure I was there to watch everyone else’s papers because they usually aren’t crowded. TAMmers leave in droves on Sunday before the event is over and the papers were really poorly advertised this year. There was no program, there was no schedule that anyone had access to, our names weren’t printed anywhere, certainly our subjects weren’t printed anywhere. It was poorly done, I have to say — we’re not headliners, but we are people who still had to pay despite the fact that we’re talking. The least they could have done is put our names somewhere so people would know what they were listening to.

Anyway, I went to the papers. I was fairly nervous, but it was OK, I was the last to go, so I had to sit through 6 other papers before it was my turn and, unfortunately, the paper before me ate into my time a little, so I had to shorten mine up on the fly. Which was also fine, because I could see anything thanks to the lights reflecting off of my glasses, so I couldn’t really read my notes anyway.

It went over very well. The presentation was about the importance of using emotion and recognizing emotion in discussions, using the failure of the LGBT side in the Prop 8 campaign as an example of how emotional messanging works. There’s a huge tone debate in the movement at the moment, for those of you who don’t remember DBAD, because some people think that other people are too mean or confrontational. The point of my speech was to say that emotional content is one of our most useful tools, and being a dick creates an emotional response. It’s a useful tool in the tool box. But most importantly, just because the movement is about logic and rationality that doesn’t mean that ignoring emotion is the right way to go about convincing others — ignoring human emotion is irrational. Including within the movement — skeptics are not immune from being human, we should start taking that into account better when we argue.

I got a large applause when I was done, and after I left the stage a little crowd of people came over to thank me or talk with me about the issues. It was very cool. I was expecting some backlash — perhaps from being on the internet for too long — I thought some people would tell me that emotions have no place in rational debates or that they didn’t appreciate my assumption that everyone in the room was pro-gay rights, but the responses were great.

I was too keyed up to sit through the next presentation, especially as the World Cup Final was about to take place, so I just went into the hallway and talked to people who came up to me to say thanks about my presentation. To pat myself on the back a little, I’m going to write some of the Twitter responses:

kefox: Great talk this morning on communicating w/emotion. Our side is smarter & really ought to be the Jedi masters of this.

Tasutari: Ashley could easily have given a full talk – good slides, good content, well presented. Plus, there was a Joss Whedon quote.

charlesj: Ashley tells us what we need to hear, continuing from Tavris’ talk yesterday

jennifurret: Ashley nailed it on using emotions when arguing skepticism. Sometimes you need to be a dick!

SkeptiCareBear: Propaganda bad, but lack of all emotion worse. Good talk by Ashley.

StevenTheWonky: Ashley is kicking ass.

ArcheoWebby: A presenter that knows how to use a computer. Nice. Good Job Ashley.

So that was awesome. Then I went to watch the soccer game and it was so depressing, partially because there was no food at the bar and I was starving to death while also watching the US kill themselves — I’m happy for Japan, but we lost that game because we made a lot of stupid, careless mistakes and couldn’t get shots on Target. My heart goes out to Abby Wambach.

Then I heard the end of the diversity in skepticism panel, which I sort of lost interest in thanks to DJ seeming to think that getting conservatives and religious people in the movement should be some sort of a priority. I’m with Jamila on the whole getting active about causes that skeptic people should be able to see are ridiculous — the war on drugs, the prison policy.

Sean Faircloth gave essentially the same speech he’d given at the SCA Summit and it went over very well. He’s a very good cheerleader.

Then there was the closing remarks from Randi and we were done. I ran into Randi in the hallway and thanked him for letting me speak and he said he’d heard I’d done very well. I’m sure he was just saying that, but it was still awesome. I went down to the Del Mar and hung out with a lot of people who were still there and then went to Penn and Teller over at the Rio. Boy are Las Vegas cabs expensive, by the way. We were in the first seat in the Mezzanine, which was actually excellent because it was easier to see how they were doing the tricks. A lot of their tricks have been on their show or on other shows, but it was still a lot of fun. And then someone in the line for cabs recognized me and thanked me for my talk, so people at the Rio cab line probably thought I was some important person. Buahaha.

Then I packed and went to bed.

Monday, I got on the airplane and swallowed my crown. And I’m freaking out about it. Yep.

As faithful readers of the blog will know, I am going to TAM in Las Vegas this weekend. I am currently writing from the airplane because I was bored enough to shell out the $13. It is the future.

Today, I will land around 1PM and then I’m going to go get food at Baja Fresh. I’m very excited, it’s been so long since I’ve had Baja Fresh and it’s amazing. There are workshops going on all day but I didn’t have the money to be going to all of that. Tonight Rebecca Watson is having some thing that also costs money, so I probably won’t be going. I also don’t understand what the thing is, so that doesn’t help.

OMG trying to use wordpress from this droid browser is going to make me shoot myself. FFS.

Tonight, I am insanely going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 at midnight. This is insane because it won’t start until 3AM east coast time, so I’m going to be very very tired. But how often do you get to go see the last Harry Potter the first night it comes out? Never, exactly.

Then tomorrow is filled with all sorts of stuff and I don’t even know what the schedule is. I feel somewhat guilty about that, like I should have paid more attention, but I’m going to all of it, so there’s no real point in looking into it more. Tomorrow night is Penn’s Donut Party, and I’m quite excited about that. I mean, it’s donuts and Penn Jillette, what isn’t to love? I even brought a special party dress! It, alas, doesn’t have a donut on it.

Saturday is more talks that I don’t remember who is when, the third place WWC game is that day between France and Sweden, and I honestly don’t care that much so I probably won’t watch, and then that night I get to go to a double top secret thing that is going to be awesome so you should be jealous, and also feel pretty cheated that I won’t even tell you what it is. On Sunday, I am presenting my paper at 9:50 AM. Awesome, right? There’ll only be like a thousand people in the audience, so no pressure. Then! Then then then!!! USA vs JAPAN, EPIC BRAWL 2011!

I want the US to win, but I have to say I would be really happy for Japan if they won. The team is really amazing, and it’s the first time an Asia side has gotten this far in the WWC. Plus, the whole tsunami meltdown thing. But, I want the US to win so that people will pretend to care about womens soccer for a few more days, I would find that greatly pleasing.

I am on the plane! On the plane! So bored on the plane! I’m on a plane and it’s going fast and I got a aeronautical themed pashmina afghan

Weirdly enough, George Hrab, the MC of the event, is on the same flight as me. I met him originally at the SCA summit in Washington DC where he performed and we took silly pictures and sent a message to a friend of mine who was insane jealous. Mostly because I don’t listen to the Geologic Podcast and he does, so I don’t have a terribly good knowledge of the George Hrabness. Anyway, he’s sitting behind me and threatening to throw things at me, though I think he’s so absorbed in his iPad or whatever it is that he won’t remember to do that. Plus, they don’t hand out free snacks, which is really the best thing to throw at people.

T-minus 1 hour to Las Vegas. Woooooooo!

Hopefully you’ll get lots of really boring updates from me, because I know you’re all really friggin jealous! I’m going to be hanging out with Heidi Anderson, Jenna Marie Griffith, Jen McCreight, Neil deGrasse Tyson (he will hang out with me, dammit, it will happen), and like 200 other awesome people who are awesome.

Alright, enough of this, I’m going to go back to surfing the web in an attempt to find something to write about for social axcess, I can’t find anything worth writing about.

France defeated Australia with no surprises, except that Australia’s defense is even worse than we thought. A lot of people are saying that the Matildas have it in them to be a contender next World Cup, but they’ve got to majorly change their defense to pull that off.

In a huge shocker, heavy favorites Germany actually lost to Japan in one of the most surprising upsets in WWC history. Germany was expected to take home its third world cup in a row, especially considering the home field advantage, and instead they didn’t even make it to the semis.

Japan dominated the game, but didn’t actually score in regular time, despite their incredible possession percentage. They scored finally in the 108th minute, shocking the German crowd who couldn’t accept the way the wind was blowing. This is the first time they’ve ever defeated a European side in the World Cup, and if this didn’t make a hero out of the incredible Sawa, then nothing could. Unfortunately, because Sweden won against Australia, Germany won’t be going to the Olympics next year, which is absolutely absurd. Europe sends the two last standing teams in the WWC to the Olympics, rather than having a qualifying tournament, meaning that their best team isn’t going next year, which is legitimately a real shame, though I can’t say I feel anything but joy for Japan after this game.

France and England played an intense game that went all the way to PKs, a rarity in WWC matches. Although Sunday’s US vs Brazil game would prove to be a much more insanely intense game, France vs England looked like it would end up the best game of the tournament. France dominated play, but England’s goalkeeper kept them in the game and England scored in the second half. England then questionably used all three of its substitutions in the last ten minutes of regular time and France scored with just two minutes left, taking the game into extra time. Neither team scored so it went to PKs, where England lost 4-3.

Hope Powell, the England coach, is rumored to be stepping down after accusing her team of cowardice. Apparently none of her team stepped forward to volunteer to take the Penalty Kicks, except the two who ended up missing them — one was exhausted, and one was playing her first WWC game — but since no one else was volunteering, they did. Probably not the most political way of dealing with the situation, but it was a hard loss.

And then there was US vs Brazil. What a game. I think I’m still recovering from the adrenaline. 2 minutes into the game, the US forced an own goal on poor Daiane, whose head must be hanging low today. The US went on to dominate the game for most of the first half and into the second. And then the referee dominated the game.

I tend not to get upset at calls, I usually get upset at the lack of instant replay, which allows bad calls by fallible eyes to go unchecked. Marta, five time player of the year aka the female Pele, was going in towards the goal and facing a completely fair challenge by Buehler, but the ref decided it was a foul — it very clearly wasn’t on replay. Buehler got a red card and sent off in the 66th minute, meaning the US went on to play a man down for the next hour, and Brazil got a Penalty Kick. For a foul that wasn’t committed, mind you.

The unbelievably awesome Hope Solo blocked the PK, but the ref decided that someone was off their line (another bad call) and gave Solo a yellow card (a truly disgustingly bad call) and forced the PK to be retaken (seriously vomit inducing). Solo did not beat Marta’s shot, and Brazil came up for a tie.

And then something amazing happened, the crowd in Germany decided they hated Marta and Brazil. I mean, really despised them because of how unfair the calls were. It is amazing at any time when a US team is liked overseas, but this was brilliant. Every time Marta touched the ball the entire crowd booed, hissed, and whistled. She was like a horrible villain on the field.

In a beautiful attack by the US on Brazil’s goal, they got called offsides when they were well onside, and immediately after offsides wasn’t called on Brazil, who made a goal. Thanks to horrible calls, Brazil had a second goal, and the US was down by one.

And then Brazil got nasty, they started taking time when they didn’t need it. A player who wasn’t hurt crumpled to the ground when no one was around her in the most spectacularly cynical move I’ve seen to run out the clock, a move that makes Italy and France look like they hardly take dives at all. She stayed down for three or four minutes and got stretchered off the field. The moment play resumed, she jumped off the stretcher and joined the game. The ref only gave her a yellow card, but I would have sent that horrible woman off with a red and a severe talking to.

The German crowd started chanting USA! USA!

They added on 3 minutes of injury time to the game, taking them over the 120 minute mark and, in a truly unbelievable moment, Rapinoe sent a massive pass forward and Wambach headed it in with less than a minute of play left. It was incredible.

So it went into PKs on the anniversary of the 1999 final in Pasadena, where the US won in PKs and everyone was confident that the US was going to pull off the miracle comeback. And they did, thanks to perfect shots from all of the US and a brilliant save by Hope Solo, who is awesome, against poor poor Daiane who made the mistake of looking at the goalie. You never look at the goalie during PKs.

Germany has already beaten Canada, but France only beat Nigeria by 1, which is potentially good news for Canada. Canada doesn’t have to beat France outright, as long as there’s a bigger point spread between Canada and Nigeria. In fact, the only reason I’m picking Canada over France is the point deferential in the Nigeria game.

I think the US is going to start weak, but then find its feet. I would actually like the US to come in second in this bracket, though I think assuming they’ll get out of it is an assumption. If they flat out beat N Korea tomorrow, I’ll feel a lot better about them, they’ve been pretty shaky of late. They could also easily lose or tie Sweden, meaning N Korea isn’t out of the running here.

Regardless of the second place Group A finisher, I have a hard time seeing any of them beating Japan this year.

Match 27
US vs Norway

This is the US game to lose, but that doesn’t really mean they won’t. Gosh, I’m awfully pessimistic about the US this year, I’m just not feeling the number 1 ranking at all.

Match 28
Brazil vs Sweden

I think this could actually be a good game. Brazil’s certainly got the advantage, but it would be a brilliant upset for Sweden to beat them. And it’s possible.

SemiFinal A/B
Germany vs Japan

Why do so many match ups remind me of WWII? I think this is easily Germany’s.

SemiFinal C/D
US vs Brazil

In my optimistic moments, I think the US could win this. In my pessimistic moments, I think it’s hopeless. It’s a close call, and I’m likely to revise my opinion seeing how the teams progress through the cup, but from here I’m going to say Brazil.

3rd Place
Japan vs US

The US has never placed lower than 3rd, we’ll see if they’ve got the ability to keep that true.

Final
Germany vs Brazil

How men’s soccer of them. I’d love to see Brazil win, as it hasn’t done so yet and it would lend more legitimacy to the Women’s Soccer program in a country where soccer is the sport.

First, here’s the link to the spreadsheet on Google Docs should you want to play.

Basically what I did is make a spreadsheet predicting the winners based solely on their FIFA rank. It should be immediately noted that, in the past, FIFA rank has meant nothing. The World Cup is high stakes game playing, and injuries, travel, exhaustion, and carding are all important. So, the FIFA rank will probably end up being nearly useless at predicting games. But it’s there and I have access to it.

If you’re unfamiliar with the way the World Cup works, I’ll explain. It starts out with 8 groups (A-H) of 4 teams (32 teams total, 48 group matches). Every team in each group plays each other (6 games), and whoever has the most wins in that group moves forward as 1A, whoever has the second most wins moves forward as 2A, the other two teams go home. There are various tie-breaking things that inevitably matter as soccer is a very low-score sport, but the important thing is that every team has 3 games to prove themselves before getting kicked out.

Once a team has gotten through the group stage, it enters the knockout round, which means every game is win or go home.

Here are the games by group:

It’s fairly self-explanatory, but if you look at the last one: it’s game 48, held on 6/25, Group H, Switzerland has a FIFA ranking of 24, Honduras 38, so Switzerland to win by a 14 rank superiority.

Another interesting way of looking at the data is to group it by how closely matched two teams will be:

So, my guess would be that anything within 6 is going to be a close game, anything within 10 could easily go to the underdog, beyond 15 would probably require extremely extenuating circumstances to turn the game, and finally that N. Korea, S. Africa and New Zealand are probably completely screwed.

So, within each group there are some games that could turn out to be vitally important for the underdog to win to move forward, and where two teams are ranked closely enough that this is possible.

Mexico and Uruguay are extremely closely matched, with France significantly (but not unreachably) higher ranked, it’s likely going to be a fight to move on as 2A. Likely, Uruguay will be coming off an easy win, and Mexico will be coming off a hard fought loss.

Australia could beat Serbia and move forward as 2D.

The only game in this group that looks even remotely close is Slovakia v Paraguay. And fortunately for the drama, they’ll be fighting to stay in the competition. Of course, getting to the knockout stage is probably all they’ll manage, but there’s no small pride in that.

It’s not super close, but the Americas often don’t do as well overseas, Switzerland could be the one to go forward.

So, using this same method, the rest of the Cup looks like this:

If it fell out like this, I tell you the last 9 games would be un-bloody-believable to watch.

Running a little over 70 pages, it’s a remarkably in-depth summary of each country in this year’s finals, including football prowess, economic state, and political situation. Furthermore, it provides a primer on the potential hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and, unsurprisingly but more than interesting, an examination of economic growth and decline vis-a-vis the international football teams of respective countries.

Next in my world cup coverage will probably be me explaining to you who I’m rooting for. It’s complicated… sort of a hierarchical system rather than a “I want X to win”. There may be maths and history lessons involved.